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What's in a speech?

Any event that generates a ticking clock on cable TV before it happens is probably a victim of over-hype. It’s just tougher for any president to command the attention of the public and to clear to field.

Until Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, State of the Union speeches were written rather than delivered in person. How did that change, and has it been for the better?

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RNS: Some of the great moments in American political history are associated with this event, going back to the beginning, when it was a modified version of the king’s speech from the throne. George Washington, rather uncomfortably but dutifully, rode in a coach to Federal Hall to play the part of giving his annual address to Congress.

It’s one of the few presidential duties stipulated in the Constitution. But how to do it is left largely undefined. The practice actually ceased for more than a century because Thomas Jefferson viewed it as having royalist overtones — and because he despised speechmaking. Then you have this remarkable situation for 100 years or more when the annual address is read by a clerk in each house but nevertheless contains some of the great rhetorical moments of American history. Abraham Lincoln’s address in December 1862 during the depths of the Civil War may be the most eloquent, in which he declared, “We cannot escape history.” It’s an extraordinary examination of a nation torn apart, which Lincoln was trying to reassemble with words.

Wilson is our most parliamentary president. He decided to revive the practice, with somewhat of a chuckle that he was putting one over on Theodore Roosevelt. A self-dramatizing figure like TR would have had a field day. [Edmund Morris’s] “Theodore Rex” recalls that TR’s first message to Congress is thousands of words long, and is meant to be a paean to his slain predecessor, William McKinley. But it also hints at radical change, both in personal style and policy priorities.

Before television, the address was much more central to the annual political calendar. Now, it gets disproportionally more attention but in many ways, it’s been diminished. It’s staged for effect. Next to Lincoln’s December 1862 message, you’ve got Franklin D. Roosevelt’s January 1941 speech, in which he introduces the “Four Freedoms.” A year before Pearl Harbor, he lays out a justification for entering the war. He essentially says, “This is why we would fight if we were to, not that we’re looking to.”